SCREEN GRABS It’s Pride Weekend, which for City dwellers means you’re either a.) not seeing any movies because there’s too much else to do, b.) taking in the last few days of the Frameline film fest, c.) wondering what movies you can see that are nowhere near the Pride congestion, or d.) staying at home to avoid the same.
For those heading to the multiplex, the Big Kahuna is Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom, which advance word says is a low ebb for that series so far. For the rest of us, fortunately, there are some excellent alternatives below (all opening Friday unless otherwise noted).
(Important note: The Opera Plaza Cinemas, which comprise four among the ever-shrinking number of remaining arthouse screens in the Bay Area, is at risk of closing—the theater wanted to renovate in order to improve its screens/seating, and the space owner responded by demanding an unaffordable rent hike. There will be a hearing in City Hall Room 400 on Thursday June 28 sometime after 1 pm [depending on how the day’s agenda proceeds] for the Planning Commission to discuss this, with time allotted for brief statements by members of the public. Sufficient public support for the cinemas could prevent SF from hemorrhaging yet another important piece of what has long been considered “a great city for film lovers.” If you can’t make the meeting, contact the Planning Commission with your concerns at pic@sfgov.org or 415 558-6377.)
EN EL SEPTÍMO DÍA (ON THE SEVENTH DAY)
Starting with Girls Town in 1996, writer-director Jim McKay made several acclaimed indie features—then, like many such talents whose movies don’t make much money, he moved into TV work, directing numerous episodes of series like Law & Order, In Treatment and The Good Wife. This, his first theatrical film since 2004, returns to his familiar terrain of portraying underclass groups not typically given center stage onscreen.
In Brooklyn’s Sunset Park, nearly a dozen Mexican men share a crowded apartment, working various low-level jobs—street vendor, dishwasher, corner-store stocker—in order to send money back to the familia back home. The highlight of their few leisure hours is playing in an amateur soccer league, and their team has done well enough to make it to the league’s finals. But star player Jose (Fernando Cardona) gets some bad news: His yuppie restaurant boss insists he work that Sunday, just when the big game is scheduled.
There’s no overt political case-pleading in this modest seriocomedy, which is the kind of movie so unshowy you barely notice that after a certain point it’s got you spellbound. But as ever, McKay brings deep, unforced insight to a community that hides in plain sight, illuminating a whole culture of immigrant workers (and the often exasperatingly self-absorbed white-collar workers they provide services for) we too often take for granted but couldn’t do without. Likely to prove one of the year’s best films, this humble crowdpleaser shouldn’t be missed. McKay will appear in person for a Q&A after the Tuesday, June 26 evening show. Roxie. More info here.
MRS. HYDE
The inexhaustible Isabelle Huppert—who had six films released last year alone—stars in actor turned writer-director Serge Bozon’s (La France) new film, a very loose spin on Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic dual-personality tale. Mme. Gequil is a humorless physics teacher loathed by her students at Arthur Rimbaud High—though admittedly, they’re pretty loathsome themselves. After a lab accident during a lightning storm, she undergoes mysterious changes…though typically for Huppert, she’s not all THAT different playing either side of a now-split character.
In addition to Huppert’s droll turn, there are good performances by Jose Garcia as cool Mrs. G.’s incongruously ardent husband, Adda Senani as the disabled student who goes from nemesis to protege, and a very funny Roman Duris as the school’s fusspot principal. This low-key farce with serious social-issue underpinnings is an oddity, but a pleasing one. Roxie. More info here.
DAISIES AND CIELO
Two visual delights separated by a half-century appear this week in the Pacific Film Archive’s catch-all bracket of “Limited Engagements & Special Screenings.” Vera Chytilova’s 1966 Daisies is a marvel of slapstick surrealism in which two monstrously selfish young women cavort and con their way through a funhouse of Czech New Wave inventiveness. Alison McAlpine’s recent poetical documentary Cielo ponders the majesty of the universe from an awe-inspiring perspective: Chile’s Atacama Desert, where night-sky views are so clear they lure astronomers from around the globe. Different as they are, these two movies would both be worthy inclusions in anyone’s list of all-time favorites. PFA. Daisies: Sat/23 8:15 pm. Cielo: Sun/24 5 pm, Sat/30 8:30 pm. More info here.
WESTWOOD: PUNK, ICON, ACTIVIST
To the general public, the punk movement was a look perhaps even more than it was a sound—neither of which they approved of, at least until its once-shocking flamboyancies became absorbed into the mainstream. (Forty years later, it’s not uncommon even in small heartland towns to see otherwise conservative women “of a certain age” sporting garishly multi-colored dyed hair.) A guiding light behind punk as fashion was/is Vivienne Westwood, who with then-boyfriend Malcolm McLaren largely crafted the short, explosive phenomenon of The Sex Pistols, and their surrounding scene. They were both already “old” (in their 30s) when that cultural moment hit in the mid/late 70s.
Westwood carried on as an innovative fashion designer and hard-nosed entrepreneur through ensuing decades, eventually getting honored as a Dame of the realm—another cheerful contradiction for the erstwhile patron of a milieu whose anthem was “God save the Queen/She ain’t no human being.” Lorna Tucker’s documentary captures the past and present of its subject, warts and all: Westwood is no shrinking violet, but rather a shrieking one who makes her frequent displeasure towards employees and filmmaker alike very clear. Opera Plaza. More info here.
THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM
Late British director Ken Russell was a singular, divisive talent whose penchant for tonal and stylistic excess could overpower his subjects. But he was ideally suited to this, one of his last and best theatrical features—a period mystery based on a supernatural tale by original Dracula novelist Bram Stoker.
A young Hugh Grant and Dynasty’s Catherine Oxenburg are among the well-bred youth who find themselves in peril after a skull excavated from a convent’s ruins re-awakens rumors of an ancient worm-god cult. All of which seems very much related to the sudden appearance of one Lady Sylvia Marsh (Amanda Donohoe), a slinky aristocrat whom people keep disappearing around. Hitting just the right mix of campy and witty (Russell purportedly thought of it as his “Oscar Wilde tribute”), this tongue-in-cheek horror opus is great fun. Sun/24, Roxie. More info here.
